Lesson Plan 19

The ocean depth.

SUBJECT: LD Science

GRADE LEVEL: LD grades 6th to 10th

TITLE: What is on the bottom of the deep sea?

OBJECTIVES: Student will be able to understand what makes up the ocean floor through comprehension questions following a reading selection. Also student will be able to construct a bar graph.

READING SELECTION: Near the land, the bottom of the ocean is just plain mud washed down to the sea by rivers. Farther out to sea, fine sediment or ooze covers the bottom. This ooze may contain gravel and stones picked up by glaciers and dropped into the sea when the ice melted. There may be volcanic dust or dust from the deserts that have been deposited on the sea surface by wind. The shells of tiny one-celled animals cover millions of square miles of the ocean bottom (especially in the temperate zones). Also in the ooze are the remains of microscopic plants called diatoms. Using modern oceanographic tools, scientists can now tell us that the sediment (or ooze) is very thick in some areas and very thin in others. In the Atlantic basin the sediment layer is ten times taller than the Empire State Building. In the Pacific and Indian Oceans no sediment layers thicker than 1,000 ft. (304 m) have been found, and in some places the sediment is less than 200 ft..(61m) deep.

QUESTIONS:

What do these words mean:

Ooze

Sediment

Diatoms

How many feet thick are the thickest layers of sediment in the Atlantic Ocean? Hint: how tall is the Empire State Building?

On a separate sheet of paper, make a bar graph to show the following major ocean trenches, from the shallowest to the deepest.

TRENCH DEPTH

Pacific Ocean:

* Aleutian 8,1000
* Kiril 10,542
* Japan 8,412
* Mariana 11,033
* Philippine 10,500
* Tonga 10,882
* Kermadec 10,003
* Peru-Chile 8,055

Atlantic Ocean:

* Puerto Rico 8,648
* South Sandwich 8,400

Indian Ocean:

* Java 7,725

Lesson plan by Lynette Rozar Charleston County Discipline School.

Return to Lesson Plans